ACH stands for Automated Clearing House. It’s low-cost method to move money from one account to another. When you have payroll direct deposit, it’s done by ACH. When you give your bank account to an insurance company for automatic monthly payments, it’s done by ACH. When you transfer money from a checking account to an […]
Latest Blog Posts
The Origin of Solo 401k
Solo 401k was made possible when employee’s contributions didn’t have to be counted in the maximum tax deduction by the employer.
No Sugar Coating Please: It Was a Lost Decade
Happy New Year! With the first decade in the new millennium having come to the end, there’s a lot of retrospection in the media. What happened? What should’ve happened but didn’t? In the investing world, some say the decade was a “lost decade” and some apologists say how it wasn’t. I read articles from both […]
529 Plans: Age-Based Options Don’t Make Sense
A new-born niece came into my extended family recently. I got the task for looking into setting up a college education fund for her. I know about 529 plans. Every state has at least one plan. Some states have several plans. I quickly identified Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 plan as the best plan for my niece. […]
Conventional Wisdom "Don’t Buy a Dividend" Is Wrong
I mentioned this last year in my post 3 Reminders About Year-End Mutual Fund Distributions. I see the conventional wisdom “don’t buy a distribution” is still going strong. Vanguard reiterated this conventional wisdom in its blog post The record date: Not a tune you can dance to in early December. But the conventional wisdom is […]
Money Is Fungible
Money can be moved from one purpose to another. It doesn’t remember where it came from.
Grace Period and Double-Cycle Billing
Twitter brought my attention to an article on SmartMoney (link no long working). It’s another “banks are out there to get you” article. It alleges that some banks are exploiting a loophole in the “CARD Act” for double-cycle billing. I’m sorry to say that the journalist was misled by her sources. Whoever fed her the story […]
Alliant Credit Union: Bumpy Ride to High Yield
I wanted to have my money earn more interest than what it does in a money market account. So I joined Alliant Credit Union. Alliant Credit Union is the 7th largest U.S. credit union based on asset size, with more than 250,000 members. It was originally United Airlines Employees’ Credit Union. Now anybody can join […]
If It’s Too Expensive, Don’t Buy
In the aftermath of the financial crisis, after reading so many reports in the media about evil banks, this nugget of wisdom dawned on me: If it’s too expensive, don’t buy. You must be saying “Duh!” but let me explain. No, I’m not referring to people buying homes they can’t afford, although that would apply […]
What Is Your Marginal Tax Rate?
If I ask you point-blank "what is your marginal tax rate?" do you know the answer? If you think you know, write it down. If you are not sure, take your best guess. After you finish reading this post, see if you got it right. The marginal tax rate is the tax you pay on […]